ÂÜÀòÍø

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) marks its fiftieth anniversary this year—a milestone in the nation’s ongoing commitment to educational equity and civil rights. Yet, the very system intended to uphold its central promise of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) is showing clear signs of strain.

What began as a procedural safeguard to ensure fairness and accountability has, over time, evolved into an increasingly adversarial, inequitable, and financially unsustainable process—one that too often diverts resources from classrooms to courtrooms.

This report revisits the AASA's 2013 publication Rethinking the Special Education Due Process System and situates its recommendations within today’s far more complex legal and policy landscape.

Since 2013, litigation has intensified, costs have escalated, and inequities in access to dispute resolution have deepened. Landmark rulings—Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (2017), Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools (2023), and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024), A.J.T. v Osseo Area Schools (2025)—have collectively heightened litigation risk, expanded enforcement pathways, and introduced new uncertainty for both schools and families. At the same time, IDEA has not been reauthorized since 2004, leaving districts and parents to navigate a twenty-year-old statutory framework in an educational environment transformed by evolving disability definitions, digital access issues, and heightened procedural expectations.

The result is a system that disproportionately benefits families with financial means, imposes unsustainable burdens on schools, and fails to deliver improved educational outcomes for students.

Without reform, IDEA risks devolving into vastly inequitable system that does not lead to improved outcomes for students and consumes taxpayer dollars at a rate that threatens the financial stability of some districts.

This report includes policy recommendations to modernize dispute resolution under IDEA by expanding preventive and collaborative mechanisms—such as IEP facilitation, mediation, and early-resolution models—while improving the training, oversight, and consistency of hearing officers.

The goal is to resolve problems faster, fairer, and closer to the student, while preserving full access to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and federal courts for discrimination claims.

It also calls for reauthorization of IDEA with updated provisions that reflect today’s legal and educational realities and ensure equitable access for all families. These reforms are rights-affirming, not rights-reducing: they strengthen accountability, bring problem-solving closer to the IEP table, and raise the floor for equity, efficiency, and transparency—never serving as a pretext to narrow procedural safeguards or weaken the civil-rights protections at the core of IDEA.